Chapter 7: It’s All My Fault

The first two classes in the morning were Chinese and Mathematics.

Jiang Mingyue forced herself to listen attentively. After all, she was now a high school student, so she still had to study well.

After completing the morning exercises, there was a half-hour break. Under the urging of 118, Jiang Mingyue sneaked over to Qi Ze’s side, wanting to make up for what had happened in the morning and, by the way, get closer to him.

Jiang Mingyue walked over to Qi Ze. “Qi Ze, about this morning…”

“I told you, don’t bother me.” Qi Ze interrupted her coldly before she could finish.

“I didn’t agree to that.” she muttered in a low voice, resisting.

“What did you say?” Qi Ze asked, his voice sharp.

Jiang Mingyue raised a smile. “I said I didn’t mean to bother you. I just want to be friends with you.”

“Want to be friends with me?” Qi Ze paused for a moment.

He slightly lowered his head to look at Jiang Mingyue. Her smile was bright, and her large peach blossom eyes sparkled with tiny glimmers, like a stream of water flowing under the sunlight.

As though he had been burned by her gaze, Qi Ze quickly turned his eyes away and spoke in a cold tone. “I don’t need that.”

“Why…” she began, but before she could continue, she heard an angry shout from behind.

“Jiang Mingyue!”

Before she could finish her sentence, the voice of anger came from behind her.

Jiang Mingyue turned around in confusion.

Qi Moyang walked over with an unfriendly expression, followed by the anxious Qiang Wei and the somewhat worried Lin Shuangshuang.

Heh, it looked like they had come to demand an explanation.

Although she knew what they were here for, she still put on an innocent expression, as though she didn’t know what was going on.

Qi Moyang immediately questioned: “What’s your meaning? Are you playing me?”

The students, who had not yet dispersed, stopped in their tracks and began to watch the drama unfold.

Jiang Mingyue widened her eyes and asked in confusion: “What do you mean?”

“Don’t pretend to be dumb.” Qi Moyang snapped.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” she replied helplessly, looking at Qi Moyang as if she had been wronged.

Qi Moyang stared at her watery eyes. Her confused expression didn’t seem fake, so he reminded her: “The movie last night…”

Jiang Mingyue suddenly understood: “Was the movie not good? I spent a long time picking it out…”

“I’m not talking about whether the movie was good or not. I’m asking why you didn’t show up last night. I waited for you for half an hour!”

Jiang Mingyue was stunned, looking at Qi Moyang in disbelief: “I never said I was going.”

Qi Moyang’s voice rose immediately: “You invited me to a movie and you’re not going?”

Qiang Wei quickly grabbed Qi Moyang’s arm, fearing he might act on impulse.

Jiang Mingyue seemed to be startled by him as well, shrinking her head a little. “I invited you to watch a movie, but I didn’t say I was going to watch it with you.”

“You’re playing me!”

“I’m not!” She quickly waved her hands in protest.

Lin Shuangshuang suddenly spoke up softly, her voice gentle: “Mingyue, I’m not saying this to blame you, but you should have been clearer about things like this, so there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings.”

Jiang Mingyue started to cry. “It’s all my fault. I took it for granted. Because I knew he didn’t like me, didn’t want to see me, I decided not to go, just to make him happy.”

Then, she asked Qi Moyang in confusion: “Did you want me to go? Did you think that only if we watched the movie together would you accept my invitation?”

“I…”

Before he could say anything, Jiang Mingyue continued:

“But don’t you like Qiang Wei? Everyone knows. You like her, and yet you still wanted to watch a movie with me?”

At the end, her tone was filled with disbelief and sadness. Then, two lines of hot tears fell, and she spoke with disappointment: “You want to have your cake and eat it too? I didn’t expect you to be such a scumbag! I’ll never bother you again.”

With that, she didn’t give him a chance to speak, running away while crying.

After running a short distance, she hid behind a tree and looked back at the scene.

The crowd murmured, and Qiang Wei shook off Qi Moyang’s arm and walked away, while Qi Moyang stood frozen in place.

【Host, your acting skills would be wasted if you don’t go into the entertainment industry】.

118 was stunned by her sudden acting skills. If it didn’t know that the Host was intentionally ditching him, it might have believed her words.

“He took me as a tool in his love life, so he has to pay the price. Waiting for half an hour, he got off easy.”

Once the crowd dispersed, with nothing more to see, Jiang Mingyue prepared to head back to the classroom.

She felt a gaze from the side, and when she turned to look, it was Qi Ze.

He couldn’t have figured something out, could he?

Jiang Mingyue calmly walked over. “What a coincidence, are you heading to the classroom too? Let’s go together.”

Qi Ze turned away coldly.

It didn’t matter. She had already gotten used to it.

When they arrived at the classroom, everyone seemed to look at her subtly. She remained calm, taking a small sweet treat from her bag and handing it to Qi Ze.

Luckily, the packaging was good, and it wasn’t smashed.

“My aunt made these, they’re really delicious. Please have some.” Jiang Mingyue said, offering the box to Qi Ze. He didn’t take it and instead lay down on his desk, preparing to sleep. She placed the box on his desk. “Just think of it as a thank-you gift for yesterday’s lunch.”

Returning to her own seat, she divided her own box of treats and shared them with the people around her.

In high school, the relationships between classmates were simple, and it was easy to get close to others.

Jiang Mingyue quickly became familiar with the classmates around her—front, back, left, and right.

Chen Xiangyi, the girl sitting in front of her, hesitated for a moment before asking: “What exactly is going on between you and Qi Moyang?”

Jiang Mingyue leaned back in her chair, her tone relaxed. “I don’t have any relationship with him anymore, and I don’t like him anymore either.”

The boy behind her, He Jiaqi, leaned in curiously. “Really? But yesterday morning, you looked like you couldn’t live without him?”

“Really, I’m not lying to you. I just suddenly figured it out. Since he has someone he likes, why should I keep torturing myself?”

Chen Xiangyi nodded in agreement. “You’re right. I support you. Why hang yourself from one tree?”

He Jiaqi, however, teased in a mischievous tone: “You don’t have a new target now, do you?” He looked meaningfully in the direction of Qi Ze.

Jiang Mingyue lowered her voice. “Do you not have any pure relationships in your head? I don’t have any ulterior motives toward him.”

She glanced at Qi Ze, who was still lying on his desk, sleeping.

“Then why did you give him a whole box of sweets?” He Jiaqi asked, clearly skeptical.

“Because he paid for my lunch yesterday, so I gave him the sweets as a thank-you gift.”

He Jiaqi raised an eyebrow. “Gratitude for favors, but that doesn’t really seem like you.”

Jiang Mingyue smiled. “Is it wrong if I’ve turned over a new leaf?”

He Jiaqi said: “But I’ll warn you, it’s best not to get too close to Qi Ze, or you’ll end up unlucky.”

“Why do you say that?” Jiang Mingyue leaned back a little more, sensing there was something more to it.

“Don’t you know about that post?” He Jiaqi pulled out his phone and showed her a post.

The title of the post was: Exposing the Hidden Truths of Qi Ze!

The post revealed a series of things about Qi Ze, but none of them were good.

The poster claimed that Qi Ze’s mother was a vicious woman who broke up other people’s relationships and was a mistress. 

It also said that Qi Ze was cursed, that he caused the death of his grandparents and even his own mother. Anyone who got close to him would suffer misfortune.

There were also claims about his bad character—how he had been a bully in middle school, lifting girls’ skirts, getting into fights, and so on.

The post included some ambiguous photos to muddy the waters.

Below the post were a bunch of gossipers agreeing and chanting about how bad Qi Ze was, attributing all sorts of negative traits to him.

Jiang Mingyue’s anger grew as she read: “What is all this nonsense? These people are just making things up.”

She was so upset that she reported the post and threw her phone at He Jiaqi. “Do you all believe these slanderous posts?”

He Jiaqi scoffed. “How do you know it’s slander?”

“How do you know it’s not? Do they have any evidence for what’s said here? Did you see it with your own eyes or experience it firsthand?”

He Jiaqi raised an eyebrow. “So, do you have evidence?”

Jiang Mingyue rolled her eyes in frustration. “I don’t have evidence, but I know that rumors end with wise people. I won’t just believe everything I hear.”